Many, perhaps most, Guardian readers have long looked askance at the British honours system. Rather than honouring the best among us, it seems to reinforce the worst about us: class, snobbery, flummery. And that’s before you even think about the apparent awarding of honours in return for political services or cash. Or indeed the prospect of a knighthood for a figure as divisive as the Tory strategist Lynton Crosby. It’s tempting to cast an envious eye across either the Atlantic or the Channel, where citizens’ highest achievements are applauded without resorting to titles of imperial pomposity. Today, in that spirit, we list those to whom we would offer thanks, and our own Guardian medal of honour.

The volunteer

This was the year of the volunteer. The men and women in hi-vis bibs who stood on the shore to greet the migrant children washed up on the island of Lesbos. The businessman who abandoned his desk to hand water bottles to refugees as they walked across Hungary. The Parisians who on a grim November night opened their homes to harbour those wounded or shaken by a massacre on the streets of their city.

They are the unseen army of anonymous people who emerge at moments of crisis and dire need. And this year, more than ever, they have been needed. They have given their time, their sweat and their kindness. They have done it for no reward – just to answer the call of those in desperate trouble.

We salute all those who give in any way they can, including by donating money. But special respect is reserved for those who break from the convenience of their own lives, who submit themselves to hardship and exhaustion, just to provide food or water or simple human comfort to others. At the end of this dark year we honour those who brought light. We honour the volunteer.

Khaled al-Asaad

Many people devote their lives to art and culture. Khaled al-Asaad was one of the very few prepared to die for it, and in a horrifying manner. The 82-year-old Syrian archaeologist was beheaded in August by Islamic State extremists because he refused to lead them to the treasures of Palmyra he had helped to hide. Asaad could have fled when Isis advanced towards the ancient Semitic city, but he had spent most of his life there looking after its pillared temples, becoming its greatest scholar, and would not abandon it. In the end, he could save neither the city nor himself, but his sacrifice is likely to be remembered long after Isis is gone.

John German

John German is modest. He describes himself as “just a simple engineer from Michigan”. But his simple engineering helped expose the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal, which has thrown the German car maker into the worst crisis in its 69-year history. More than 12m cars are being recalled, more than €20bn has been wiped off VW’s market value and its CEO has been ousted. German hadn’t expected to find anything when, on a hunch, he started looking into VW cars’ surprisingly high emissions. But he found the company had installed “defeat device” software that reduced nitrogen oxide emissions, but only during strict tests, not when the cars were out on the road.

The former Chelsea team doctor, Carneiro was just about the only person to emerge with her dignity intact from a sorry affair that reflected badly on José Mourinho, then team manager, the FA and the game in general. When Mourinho launched a furious tirade and demoted Carneiro for doing her job by going on to the field to treat Eden Hazard, he set in motion events that are still playing out. Under intense scrutiny and provocation, and with a debate raging about sexism in the game, Carneiro kept her dignity before speaking out against bullying with quiet power. When the FA did come to investigate, it did not approach her for her side of the story. Mourinho, sacked a fortnight ago, is Chelsea history now. Carneiro’s employment tribunal against Chelsea FC, which months earlier had been promoting its commitment to diversity, is due in January.

David Pocock

To many, Australian flanker David Pocock was the player of the Rugby World Cup. But it was his commitment to issues off the field that won him respect far beyond the game. “People say that sport and politics shouldn’t mix, but I think it is important that sports people are interested in stuff outside of sport and talk about it,” he said before the tournament. He and his wife Emma have refused to sign their marriage documents in Australia until gay marriage is made legal, he has campaigned against new coal mines by physically chaining himself to a digger in New South Wales, and regularly takes a stand on everything from rhino horn poaching to fair trade issues.

Nadiya Hussain

It’s been a bleak year for British Muslims: terrorist atrocities abroad have led to increased suspicion and attacks on Muslim communities at home. But at least there was Nadiya Hussain, the new queen of cakes. From her cheeky asides and girl-next-door charm to her union flag, sari wedding cake showstopper, she was the perfect riposte to those suggesting British Muslims are insufficiently patriotic or integrated. Winning our hearts through our stomachs (and an impressive set of eyebrows), her presence on the Great British Bake Off was as soothing as a cup of tea.

Christiana Figueres

A new global agreement on climate change, agreed by 196 countries, joining developed and developing nations together and pledging them to limit warming in line with scientific advice: just a year ago, only the brave would have predicted it possible. It took more than four years of tense talks, culminating in two weeks of gruelling negotiating sessions, running through the night in Paris. Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres, UN climate chief since 2010, must take most of the credit. She worked tirelessly to iron out differences among nations, and will now step down with this accord as her lasting legacy.

Angela Merkel

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Germans thought they knew Angela Merkel. She was cautious and sensible – Mutti (Mummy) knew best. But it turned out the world didn’t really know Merkel. When Europe faced its greatest humanitarian crisis since the second world war, with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and other conflict zones, another side of Merkel emerged. Appalled at the huge scale of the suffering and outraged by the narrow-mindedness of Germany’s southern neighbours, she declared the moment represented “a historic test” for Europe and threw Germany’s gates open. One million refugees later, the buzz of moral wellbeing is fading among Germans and Merkel’s political future is clouded. But there is no doubting her courage, and it’s hard to deny she spared Europe at least some of its shame.

Mhairi Black

Her maiden speech in the House of Commons was fearless, angry, passionate and undaunted by the circumstance of being the youngest MP for 300 years. The 20-year-old SNP MP has brought style, youth and heart to Westminster. The best description of her nomination: for services to the future.

Brian Harrison

A former Red Cross volunteer, Brian Harrison was on holiday in June at the Imperial Marhaba hotel in the Tunisian resort of Sousse when an Isis-inspired gunman launched a murderous assault, killing 30 Britons. Harrison had travelled with his wife, a nurse, from Aberdeen and together they were among the first responders on the scene. He grabbed tablecloths and napkins from the restaurant to bandage the wounds of the injured and dying, tended to those who had seen loved ones killed just minutes earlier and accompanied the seriously injured to hospital.

Feidin Santana

The 23-year-old Dominican-born immigrant filmed the police shooting of Walter Scott in Charleston, South Carolina, on his mobile phone and then, fearing for his life, decided to share it with Scott’s family. His bravery ensured justice for Scott and provided yet more irrefutable evidence of the brutality African-Americans suffer at the hands of law enforcement.

Ione Wells

When 20-year-old student Ione Wells decided to speak publicly about her sexual assault, she never imagined the movement that it would start. But as the powerful open letter she wrote to her attacker went viral so the #notguilty campaign was born, with people all over the world compelled to share their own experiences. In Wells’s determination not to let her own attack change her life, she has inspired much-needed openness about how widespread rape culture is.

Phaedra Almajid

Among those cheering this year’s collapse of Sepp Blatter’s Fifa regime was Phaedra Almajid, one of a small cadre of brave sporting whistleblowers who helped bring the pompous, self-appointed captains of world sport crashing down this year. Vindication was long coming. Having previously made a series of claims about impropriety during Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid, for which she was a marketing executive, Almajid was forced into a retraction by those she accused. Having fled to the US, she then had to suffer being outed by Fifa’s own ethics committee despite being promised anonymity. The world’s favourite sport is cleaner today, thanks to her.

Marlon James

The Man Booker prize-winner habitually brings more to the literary world than literature, and Marlon James is no exception. The success of his third novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, catapulted him and Caribbean writing into a welcome spotlight. He is the first Jamaican writer to win. The bestseller represents an opportunity for other Caribbean writers, but also a timely challenge. James, who is openly gay, left the island for America, having long been the victim of homophobia. His book, hailed as “extraordinary”, explores homosexuality and homophobia against the backdrop of an assassination attempt on Bob Marley in his homeland. There were easier paths to success. James eschewed them. By confronting taboos head on, he set an example for others to follow.

Elena Ferrante

How refreshing in such fame-hungry times that the novelist of the moment, Elena Ferrante, has chosen to hide behind a pen name. The translation of the final novel in her Neapolitan quartet, My Brilliant Friend, elevated her to new heights, yet her identity remains secret. As Ferrante explains: “I simply believe that it’s wrong to let one’s person become better known than one’s work.” Aside from her incredible books, there is a great deal to admire about Ferrante – whoever she really is.

Sam Bain, Jesse Armstrong

Peep Show is in the best traditions of British television comedy – farcical and poignant, wildly absurd and cruelly realistic, driven by flawed characters who test the boundary where unlikable is redeemed by vulnerable. The picaresque adventures in cohabitation of Mark and Jeremy (played by David Mitchell and Robert Webb) belong in the pantheon of dysfunctional comedy situations: the Steptoes, the Trotters, Basil and Sybil Fawlty. And like all the greats, Peep Show is also discreetly satirical, holding a warped mirror up to an infantilised generation that was supposed to land in adulthood at the turn of the millennium but missed. To sustain this quality over nine seasons is the achievement of writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong and, at the end of the final series, for that we honour them.

Naz Shah

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On a grim general election night for Labour, the ousting of the Respect MP George Galloway was one of its few bright spots. But this was no ordinary win. Labour’s candidate in Bradford West, Naz Shah, had endured a childhood of poverty and fear, overshadowed by her mother’s coerced relationship with an abusive man. She herself was forced into an arranged marriage at 15; she was still a teenager when her mother was jailed for murder, after finally snapping and killing her abuser. When Shah overcame an ugly, bitterly personalised election campaign against her in Bradford to win a thumping majority, even Tory MPs were secretly thrilled.

Abi Morgan

Why did it take so long for the story of women’s campaign for the vote to reach the big screen – a campaign complete with extraordinary leaders, brilliant activists, widespread imprisonment, force-feedings, iconoclasm, flights in runaway dirigible balloons and martyrdom? Whatever the reason, almost a century after those campaigners won the first stage of their battle, it was writer Abi Morgan who brought them to life in her screenplay for the film Suffragette. Morgan has explored women’s rights before, but this year she went further, committing herself to work that focuses on women for the next four or five years. The Pankhursts would certainly have approved.

Andrea Accomazzo

A computer-generated image of the European space probe Rosetta with its landing robot Philae. Photograph: ESA/EPA

Space missions are so routine that we are in danger of losing sight of the achievements that make them happen. Take the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission. The spacecraft and its lander, Philae, have enriched our knowledge of comets no end. To gather the scientific data has taken some of the most exquisite flying in the solar system. The lander was dropped from twice the height of a cruising airliner on to a spinning comet travelling at 54,000km per hour 510 million kilometres from Earth. To hit the target, Rosetta’s speed was controlled to 1.7mm per second. Since then, Andrea Accomazzo’s team has flown Rosetta through dust storms, past flying boulders, and close enough to film its shadow on the comet’s surface. A very giant leap.

The women who exposedthe Met’s undercover cops

For four years the Metropolitan police fiercely resisted a legal action initiated by Helen Steel, Belinda Harvey and six other anonymous women, who discovered that their one-time boyfriends had been undercover police officers. Then in November, the Met gave seven of them a comprehensive apology and substantial compensation (the eighth did not accept the settlement and is continuing her legal fight), admitting that the long-term relationships their officers had formed with the women were “abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong”. The force has also paid out to a woman who discovered the father of her son was an undercover officer. Even the Met has been forced to applaud the “courage and tenacity of these women”. Rightly so.

Barack Obama

Americans overall tend not to cut Barack Obama much slack. So he is not likely to get as much credit as he deserves in America for two stunning foreign policy successes this year. He ended the oddity – some would say insanity – of the lack of diplomatic ties with Cuba. Ties were restored this summer, ending a policy that began with the closure of the US embassy in Havana in 1961. And the US followed this diplomatic coup with an even greater one, bringing to a successful conclusion protracted negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme. A US or Israeli attack on Iran was a real possibility and that has now receded, as has – at least in the short term – the prospect of nuclear proliferation.

Baroness Warsi

Because loyalty is a given, it takes nerve and a thick skin to challenge the Conservative party. But this year Sayeeda Warsi, Tory peer, former party chair, has thrice felt duty bound to challenge her colleagues to behave better. In January she spoke out about the approach of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition towards Muslims. In February she sounded the alarm that her party was doing too little to attract minority Britons. Last month, with her party in denial about the gravity of bullying allegations, Warsi intervened to show that senior officials had received fair warning and had a duty to act. Many Tories may be aggrieved. The public will think differently.

Steph Houghton

Steph Houghton captained England to third place in the women’s World Cup. Photograph: Lars Baron - Fifa

As England’s men continued to disappoint on the world stage, it was left to Steph Houghton to lead England to third place in the women’s World Cup in Canada. It was the most successful World Cup campaign by a British football team of either gender since 1966 and all that. Following a typically slow start, England’s campaign took in tears (Laura Bassett’s heartbreaking injury-time own goal in the semi-final against Japan) and triumph (victory over Germany to finish third) in equal measure. It also provided the recently professionalised women’s domestic game in England with a welcome fillip and a base from which to build.

Edward Snowden

As senators in Washington voted 67-32 this summer to pass the USA Freedom Act – ending the bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records and ushering in the country’s most significant surveillance reform for a generation – the impetus for this far-reaching change sat thousands of miles away, vindicated but with freedom still curtailed. It was two years ago that Snowden first revealed, via the Guardian, that the US National Security Agency was collecting the phone records of citizens there and overseas, in bulk and indiscriminately. Progress has been won at great cost to Snowden himself. No longer as isolated as he was, he also entered the world of Twitter, and now has 1.71 million followers. “I feel very good about the sense of contribution,” he says. He should.